Rating: 
Summary: Worth reading again and again
Review: A very insightful work. I had debated the purchase of this book because of its hardcover price, but didn't regret the decision once I started reading. The use of Celtic materials to illustrate points adds much to the book. Mr. O'Donohue is a gentle adventurer of the soul.
Rating:
Summary: a great book to take everywhere with you
Review: After reading this exceptional gift to your life, you may want to just keep it handy and randomly review sections of it according to whim. The sections and thoughts stand alone as well together. Sometimes I am reminded of de Chardin except I feel freer here. I don't see how you could read this book without being enriched by it. The wisdom contained is profound.
Rating:
Summary: A genuine, understandable book of widsom
Review: Anam Cara : A Book of Celtic Wisdom stood out as the best resource on contemplative prayer that I have ever read. After being disappointed with several similar books I was extremely pleased and relieved to find this one. It is positive and uplifting and doesn't have all the excess baggage that is typical of this genre. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in exploring personal prayer. Forget about Thomas Merton and William Law, this is the only book on the subject worth owning.
Rating:
Summary: This is a beautiful book.
Review: Anam Cara, ("Soul Friend"), by John O'Donohue is a beautiful book, weaving Celtic spirituality and tradition into an Irish poet's musings on life. What I loved about this book was its beauty. Written to discuss Celtic spirituality, it actually (in my view) showcases O'Donohue's dazzling, moving and intimate gift of poetry. I found his imagery and poems breathtaking - so much so, that I saved most of them. He is deeply lyrical, old fashioned, close to the land, and, again, strikingly beautiful.
Rating:
Summary: Each sentence is a ponderable morsel.
Review: Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom is truly a work of art. Over the past three years, I have been working on discovering myself through self-help books, 12-step programs, religious study, and personal introspection. This book summed up everything I have learned (the hard way) during this time, and presented it in a beautiful package that was invigorating and thought-provoking to read. It was a pure joy. I began reading it in January, and have only just finished it last night, because each sentance was a ponderable morsel. Sometimes I would read a phrase five times over in order to fully grasp and apply it's meaning to my life. This is not a 70 mph trip through the McDonald's drive-thru, this is a seven course meal in Vienna, and every bite demands that you hold it in your mouth to savor it.Anam Cara is one of the best non-fiction books I have ever read. I plan to read it again in a year or so, because I know I will get new things out of it. I am already loaning it to a friend, and have a couple of others in mind I'd like to loan it to. I can't keep this from the ones I love.
Rating:
Summary: I am found
Review: As souls we explore life alone--and this has broken a lot of people, made them hurful and angry, sad. But still there has always been this need to express myself completely, to find those correct words, that absolute means of bridging all that separates me from another human being... It was a joy to have been recommended to this book, to see and think and reflect on where and how, why and for whom we can suffer so much alone when all we need to is express... A fantastic book, and one that I will share as a treasure not only as a tool for insight into my own soul, but as a gift to all of the special people in my life. It is a book about loving. Excellent!
Rating: 
Summary: not what I thought
Review: At the beginning of the book, I thought I was going to enjoy it because of how it started. But as I got in further, even his poet writing style couldn't save me from wanting to throw this book away. I picked up the book because I am interested in Celtic Wicca and wanted to learn more about Celtic myth. But inside I found that it was very repetitive and really, lacking a lot of information. I also felt that because of his recurrent mention of God, he was trying to press his beliefs on whoever reads the book. So really it was too much personal information, and not enough actual information on the Celts.
Rating:
Summary: Celtic Wisdom Brings Attitude Adjustment
Review: Attitude adjustment! Usually people think "Happy Hour" when they hear attitude adjustment mentioned. But, the phrase is turned here to recommend a book on spirituality. John O'Donohue in his Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom beautifully describes the spiritual landscape of Celtic people. Attitudes get adjusted as the reader goes with him through the "Mystery of Friendship;" and "Toward A Spirituality of the Senses;" then moves on through the themes of solitude, work, aging and death. His poetic and powerful writing style, his well-grounded scholarship, and his gentle love of God and people combine to provide a emarkable resource for nurturing daily living. This book is not to be missed nor rushed through. Buy two because you'll want to give a copy to a friend.
Rating:
Summary: Celtic Wisdom Brings Attitude Adjustment
Review: Attitude adjustment! Usually people think "Happy Hour" when they hear attitude adjustment mentioned. But, the phrase is turned here to recommend a book on spirituality. John O'Donohue in his Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom beautifully describes the spiritual landscape of Celtic people. Attitudes get adjusted as the reader goes with him through the "Mystery of Friendship;" and "Toward A Spirituality of the Senses;" then moves on through the themes of solitude, work, aging and death. His poetic and powerful writing style, his well-grounded scholarship, and his gentle love of God and people combine to provide a emarkable resource for nurturing daily living. This book is not to be missed nor rushed through. Buy two because you'll want to give a copy to a friend.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing book
Review: Being an incurable celtophile, I bought this book in hopes that it would contain a good basic introduction to the Celtic concept of Anam Cara. However, what I found upon reading was that this book was in actuality little more than a somewhat postmodern primer on neoplatonism and New Age philosophy.
Interspersed with a few interesting tidbits of Irish folklore and even less historical study, what the author most often cites are classical philosophers and mystics like Plato, Plotinus, Augustine, John Cassian, Meister Eckhart, Buddhist writings, (none of whom qualify as Celtic, interestingly), in addition to a smattering of modern Irish writers who shed no particular light on the concept referred to in the title of this book.
Cahill's _How the Irish Saved Civilization_ was a much more helpful, instructive, and, may I say honest, book, in that it actually delivered what it promised. I truly wish I could say the same for O'Donohue's _Anam Cara_.
|
